Stardust (22 page)

He took her shoulder, drawing her closer and kissing her. “I’m sorry it was so fast.”

“No, don’t be sorry.”

“Next time we won’t have to hurry.”

She propped herself up, looking down at him.

“Already a next time. You’re so sure,” she said lazily.

“Now I know you.”

“You think that’s true? You sleep with someone and you know her? All those girls before—you knew them? Every one?”

“I didn’t want to know them.”

“Just go to bed. Very nice. And now that you’ve seduced me—”

“Me?”

She smiled, moving her hand down his chest. “You’re sweaty.”

He moved his hand up to her breast, running the back along it.

“Come on,” she said, getting off the bed.

“How can you move? Where?”

“Just come.”

She pulled his hand and he followed, his eyes trailing her white skin, feeling illicit walking naked through the dark house. He put his hand on the smooth flesh of her behind, cupping it, and she laughed, then sprang away, opening the patio door and running across the tiles to the pool, looking over her shoulder once at him before she plunged in. He ran after her, the front of him flapping in the warm night air, then jumped in, too, and swam after her underwater, his testicles floating beneath him, everything free. When he caught up to her, they both rose to the surface.

“Isn’t it wonderful?” she said, shaking her hair. “I never want to wear clothes again.”

“All right,” he said, kissing her.

She laughed. “And you’d like that?”

She swam a little toward the shallow end so they could hold each other without having to keep afloat in deep water.

“You know, my father says you can only seduce someone who wants to be seduced. Otherwise it can’t work.”

“When did he say that?” Ben said, kissing her again.

“In a story.
Die Verführung
.”

“
The Seduction
. He wrote a love story?”

She giggled. “Well, it was about Germany. How the country wanted to be seduced by Hitler. But I think it’s the same with people. Like you,” she said, touching his face.

“What about you?”

He drew her against him as they kissed, not playing anymore, aroused again, drawing one leg up around her.

“Everyone thinks it should be easy in the water,” she said, “but it’s hard. Maybe Esther Williams can.”

“Who?”

“You don’t know her?
Bathing Beauty
? With Cugat? Daniel did some Second Unit work on it.” She stopped, looking away.

“We didn’t get everything overseas,” he said, trying to glide over it.

“Maybe it was like this for him,” she said, distracted. “With the others. All like me. So now I’m one of them.”

He let his leg drop, freeing her below, then turned her head with his fingers. “I’m not him.”

She glanced up and moved her shoulder. “And you don’t love me, either. So that’s the same anyway. But I know it. So nobody gets hurt.”

“Nobody gets hurt.” Not wanting to go further, coaxing her back.

“Someone you meet at a party. Why not her?”

“Is that what it feels like to you?”

She looked at him for a second, her eyes opening wider, then pulled him closer, leaning her head into his.

“Make love to me,” she said, her voice quick and raspy.

He glanced over the side of the pool. “The chaise,” he said, kissing her.

“Yes, on the chaise,” she said, amused. “Like an odalisque.” She took his hand, urgent again, leading him up the shallow steps, shivering a little as the breeze touched them.

He held her to him, his body a blanket, then lay down next to her.

“Now you seduce me,” she said.

“You have to want me to,” he said, stroking her. “That’s how it works.”

She pulled herself up, her wet hair falling on him, then took his penis into her, straddling him. She closed her eyes, just feeling him there for a second, then slowly sat up, moving just a little, looking down on him. “This time we don’t have to hurry.”

This time it was slow enough to feel everything, every part, until they came again, gasping, and then fell back together, not talking, just breathing. Ben could see the city lights in the distance, hear the palm fronds overhead clicking in the soft air, the sound of paradise.

After a while it turned cooler, and he went over to the changing cabana and brought back two robes. She wrapped herself in one and reached for a cigarette pack on the table, then crunched it up.

“There are more in the house,” she said. “Can I get you anything? A drink?”

He shook his head, then raised the back of the chaise to sit upright. He watched her go in, a blur of white through half-closed eyes, and leaned back, smelling the night flowers. A light went on in the house. In a minute, he knew, his body would start to go limp and he’d drift, the animal languor that came after sex. Everything else could wait until tomorrow—what had happened, what it would mean. Now there was just this.

“Ben.” She was back at the door, her body tense, voice nervous. She waved him toward her, as if she were afraid of being overheard.

He crossed the patio, tilting his head in a question.

“Somebody’s been in the house,” she said, keeping her voice low.

“What?”

“In the office. Things were different. Moved. I could tell.” She put her hand on his arm. “Maybe they’re still here.” Her eyes darting, upset.

“You’re sure? You didn’t lock the doors?”

“Of course I locked the doors. This one, too,” she said, nodding to the patio door. “Sometimes Iris forgets.”

He looked down at the door handle. No scratches or chipped paint, but an easy lock, he guessed, for someone who knew how.

“What if they’re still
here,
” she said, gripping his arm tighter.

“Calm down. There’s no one here.” He thought of them on the bed, grunting, someone watching—but they would have felt that, sensed anyone’s presence, wouldn’t they? “I’ll walk through.” He flicked on a light. “Is anything missing?”

“I don’t know. I just went to the study, for cigarettes.”

“What was moved?”

“Little things. On the desk.”

“Maybe Iris—”

“No. It didn’t seem right. I could feel it.”

“Another feeling?”

“Don’t laugh at me,” she said, almost snapping. “Someone was here. In the house.” She clutched the top of her robe tighter, her voice rising a pitch.

“All right, I’ll look. Where do you keep your valuables?”

She looked at him blankly.

“Jewels,” he said. “Cash.”

“Jewels? Just the pearls—in the bedroom.”

But the bedroom was untouched, except for the bed, the spread twisted and still damp from sex. Nobody had taken anything from the bureau drawer, the velvet box with earrings and a clip. There was still money under the handkerchiefs.

He went through the rest of the house, turning on lights, Liesl close to him, still anxious, fear bobbing just beneath the surface. Not just an intruder, a more general violation.

“Ever have any trouble before?” Ben said.

“No, it was safe. I was safe here.”

“You’re still safe,” he said, taking her by the shoulders. “Stop.”

“You don’t know what it’s like,” she said, not really hearing him. “Every knock. Always looking back. I thought it was different here.”

“Liesl, nothing’s missing. So, just in here?” he said, turning in to the study.

She nodded. “The desk. Somebody went through the desk.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s different. Look at the blotter—see the one end out? To look under. See for yourself. You know his drawers.”

She picked up the cigarettes, lighting one now, her hand shaking, then stood watching him go through the drawer. Everything seemed the same. Until the second drawer, the folders of personal papers. The police accident report, jammed at the end, not where he’d put it.

“What?” she said, seeing him hesitate.

“Something’s out of place.”

He went through the envelope, flipping through the photos.

“Everything’s here. Probably where I put it, just looked different.”

“No, you noticed.”

“Liesl, why would someone break into the house and not take money—anything—just go through a desk?”

“His desk.”

“All right, his desk.”

She inhaled smoke, then folded her arms across her chest, holding herself in. “It’s what you said. I didn’t believe you. Why would anybody do that? I thought it was just your way of—” She broke off, hearing herself, racing. “But it’s true, isn’t it? Maybe I always knew it. That he wouldn’t. I didn’t want to be afraid. And now they’re in my house. Somebody killed him and they’re still not finished. What do they want?”

“I don’t know,” he said, coming over to her.

“Maybe they think I have it—whatever they want.”

“They didn’t go through your things. Just his.”

“I can’t stay here. Listening. Any noise. I’ll go to my father’s.”

He took her by the shoulders, as if he were holding her down before she could fly away.

“I’m here. You’re just nervous, that’s all. I’ll be right next to you. All night.”

“Oh, next to me, and what will Iris think?” An automatic response.

He smiled at her. “The worst, probably.”

“How can you joke?”

“I’ll check the doors. Nothing is going to happen to you. I promise.” He kissed her forehead. “If you’re worried about the house, I’ll talk to somebody. Make it safe.”

“Who?”

“Guy I met. He’d know.”

She dropped her head to his chest. “When is it going to be over? The phone rings—your husband’s in—when was that? And it’s still not over. What did he do? Go with Rosemary? And he’s dead for that? It’s crazy. And now you. What am I doing? His brother.” She raised her head. “Maybe that’s crazy, too. My lover.”

“Say that again,” he said, brushing her hair.

She looked away. “Oh, that doesn’t make it any better.”

“It doesn’t have to make sense. It happens. We wanted it to.” He paused. “We seduced each other.”

“So nothing makes sense.”

“What happened to him. We have to make sense of that.” He touched her hair again. “Just that.”

L
IESL’S FATHER’S
birthday went exactly as predicted. Dieter read a long prepared toast, then Ostermann stood up for his own prepared thank-you. The others were more spontaneous, but none of them brief. “The Conscience of Germany,” a glib phrase from
Time,
had now become a kind of honorary title, his own
von
. The toasts ran to form: the books, the humanitarian concerns, the early courage in speaking out, all noted before and repeated now, familiar as myth.

The dinner itself followed a prescribed pattern. It had been called for late afternoon, a throwback to the curfew days when aliens had to be home by eight, and the food, according to Liesl, was unvarying— steaming bowls of chicken soup with liver dumplings, boiled beef with horseradish, potatoes, and red cabbage, followed finally by Salka’s chocolate cake, a menu that seemed designed to weigh people down in their chairs for the toasts. Later, after the brandies, there would be coffee and
mohn cookies, more winter food as the California sun poured through the window.

Salka’s house, on a steep wooded road dropping down into Santa Monica Canyon, was modest, a doll’s house compared to Lasner’s. The guests were many of the same people who’d come to Danny’s funeral, and they greeted Ben like an old friend with the fast hospitality of exiles. Brecht was there again and spent most of the time arguing with someone in a corner. Lion Feuchtwanger, interrupting, playing peacemaker; Fritz Lang, with a monocle. Thomas Mann had not come this time, a social deference, not wanting to eclipse the birthday honoree. Kaltenbach wore a suit that needed cleaning.

Ben noticed scarcely any of it, preoccupied, the German toasts droning in the background, Liesl down the table, her face half-hidden by one of Salka’s flower arrangements. Did she look different? Did he? Could anyone tell? If he looked down at the lace tablecloth, blotting out the rest, he could see her last night, riding him, her breasts bobbing, and he smiled to himself because no one else knew, their secret. Maybe this was the excitement spies felt, sitting down with the enemy, knowing something, holding it to themselves, while no one else had the faintest idea. What was more secretive than sex? Kaltenbach stood up to make his toast. Ben glanced down again at Liesl, this time meeting her eyes, amused, talking to him in code, just the two of them.

When he went out to the kitchen to open more wine she followed, standing behind as he pulled the corkscrew, putting her hand on his waist. He turned, their faces close.

“Somebody’ll see,” he said quietly, glancing toward the dining room, the angle of the table.

She pulled at his shirt, moving them away from the sink, the open door.

“No, they won’t,” she said, urgent, her eyes darting with excitement. “Not here.” Kissing him then, her lips warm, unexpected, alive with risk. From the dining room there was the tinkle of glass, and they kissed harder, racing ahead of it.

He pulled away, breathless. “They’ll see,” he said, already hard, his face red with it, unmistakable.

“I don’t care,” she said, eyes shiny, still moving, then leaned forward again. “I don’t care.”

Not really meaning it, playing, but the words flooding into him like sex itself, rushing, wonderful. Then there was the scrape of a chair and he turned back to the counter, grasping the wine bottle, and she slipped over to the refrigerator, opening it with a faint suppressed giggle, kids stealing cookies, waiting to be found out. He took a breath to calm himself and started in with the wine. But when he saw that the chair belonged to Ostermann, standing to respond to a toast, he glanced back at Liesl, a complicit smile, something they’d got away with after all.

After dinner Salka led the party down Mabery Road to the beach to watch the sunset. Ben had volunteered to drive Feuchtwanger home, a cliffside house on a twisting Palisades road that would be treacherous in the dark, so he was late joining the others on the broad beach. People who’d come earlier for the day were still in bathing suits or sweatshirts and stared openly at Salka’s group in suits and ties. Liesl took her shoes off, but the men didn’t bother, formal even in the sand. The light on the water had already begun to turn the deep gold just before orange.